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Dionne Warwick has built a résumé in the past 55 years that many recording artists can only envy: five Grammy Awards, 60 charted hit songs, more than 100 million records sold and collaborations with a Who's Who of pop, rock and R&B artists.

But in an interview from her hometown of New York City, the 75-year-old seems most eager to talk about her humanitarian work, especially her advocacy for AIDS research and treatment.

"Unfortunately, we're seeing life in the epidemic again," said Warwick, who will visit Salt Lake City on Wednesday to kick off the Utah Film Center's Damn These Heels LGBT film festival and raise money for a documentary about her life.

Her professional career began when she was only 17, when the gospel group she performed with was hired to sing background vocals for artists such as Ray Charles, Dinah Washington, the Shirelles and The Drifters. In 1961, she met a composer named Burt Bacharach, who asked her to sing on the demos of some songs he was working on with lyricist Hal David. Those sessions led to a recording contract with Sceptor Records and her first top 40 hit, "Don't Make Me Over," according to her 2010 autobiography, "My Life, As I See It," written with her manager, David Wooley.

Warwick earned her first Grammy in 1968 for "Do You Know the Way to San Jose," and a second in 1970 for the album "I'll Never Fall in Love Again."

She's been the host of a TV show ("Solid Gold"), recorded songs for shows such as "The Love Boat," and in addition to her autobiography, has written two children's books, "Say a Little Prayer" and "Little Man."

Now she's participating in two movies about her life, one a documentary for PBS' "American Masters" series and another that she said will focus on her life from 1962-68 and will be based on her autobiography.

Geralyn Dreyfous, founder of the Utah Film Center and an independent film producer, is executive producer of the PBS documentary. She said the film "will focus on [Warwick's] career as one of the first African-American crossover artists. Only Aretha Franklin has more charted singles than Dionne."

Dreyfous said she didn't hesitate when asked to participate. "I grew up listening to Dionne Warwick and have always admired her elegance and willingness to lend her moral currency as an artist to social issues."

Warwick, whose advocacy has endeared her to the LBGT community, said she became proactive about the cause and spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, when friends and associates in the artistic community began falling ill in the early 1980s.

"I became very, very inquisitive during the period of time when nobody knew what HIV was," she said. "It didn't even have a name. We were losing so many people within my industry."

Her interest in identifying a cause and finding a cure led to her appointment in 1987 by then-President Ronald Reagan as a Global Ambassador of Health. As part of that work, she said she traveled the world, "visiting places where they were making headway with medications, trying to stem the disease."

It's not the only cause that Warwick has embraced. According to her official website, she has raised millions of dollars for disaster relief, world hunger, children's hospitals and music education. A school in New Jersey, where she was born and raised in East Orange, bears her name, The Dionne Warwick Institute.

But music remains at the center of her life. In fact, Warwick said she plans to soon begin recording a new album, although she is mum about her collaborators. "I've been very, very fortunate in having people sending me some wonderful songs to sing," is all she will say about the new project.

This week's appearance isn't her first visit to Utah. She's performed here more than once, and she's been back many times, she said, to promote her eponymous fragrance because her business partner lives in the Beehive State.

The upcoming Salt Lake City performance will feature a conversation between Warwick and director Ellen Goosenberg Kent, along with film clips highlighting Warwick's career that form the basis for the PBS documentary. She will also sing two or three songs.

One of them could be "Do You Know the Way to San Jose," which she described this way in her autobiography:

"I hated it. I just could not believe Hal [David] could or would ever write a lyric 'whoa, whoa, whoa' and expect me to sing it. But I recorded it because of Hal. The song – and San Jose — meant something to him. And I cried all the way to the bank." —

An evening with Dionne Warwick

When • Wednesday, July 13, 7:30 p.m.

Where • The Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 W. Broadway, Salt Lake City

Tickets • $25 for Utah Film Center members and Damn These Heels passholders; $35 general public; $75 for VIP meet and greet; available through artsaltlake.org